Downing Street and the Foreign Office suggested yesterday that Moussa Koussa was not a prime suspect in the Lockerbie bombing, amid suspicions that the former enforcer for Colonel Gaddafi will never be brought to justice.
Officials insisted that “no shoddy deal” had been done to give him permanent safe haven. Speaking in No 10, David Cameron said: “Let me be clear, Moussa Koussa is not being granted immunity. There is no deal of that kind.”
However, there was little sign that the former head of Colonel Gaddafi’s feared intelligence agency is facing imminent prosecution, despite running a secret police between 1994 and 2009 that is accused of imprisoning and torturing opponents of the regime.
In an unusual move, British officials from both Downing Street and the Foreign Office suggested that they did not believe there was a case for Mr Koussa to answer on the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, despite some claims by relatives of victims to the contrary. Mr Koussa was a senior intelligence official at the time.
Scottish prosecuting authorities made a request to speak to Mr Koussa yesterday, saying that they would “pursue all relevant lines of inquiry”. But Whitehall officials said that the interview with police would be voluntary and not happen imminently and that he was not viewed by the police as a “prime suspect”.
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The request was made to “seek to find out if there is relevant information”, officials said, with one pointing out that Mr Koussa was not arrested when he visited Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the bombing, at Greenock Prison in 2008 and 2009.
Mr Cameron and William Hague avoided condemning the activities of Mr Koussa yesterday, reflecting the sensitivity in Government towards him. The Foreign Secretary made the unusual claim that his Libyan counterpart had sounded “distressed” during phone calls and that, “reading between the lines”, disagreed with the work of the regime.
Mr Hague went further in defending his actions, suggesting that the Libyan had been “helpful” in securing the release of captured Britons since the crisis had begun. Jack Straw, the former Foreign Secretary, also spoke up for Mr Koussa, pointing out his role helping to normalise Libya’s relations with the West.
Opponents of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime called for Mr Koussa to face justice, but are likely to be disappointed in the short term. Officials confirmed that a war crimes tribunal investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague was unlikely to come to a speedy conclusion. The Foreign Secretary declined to say whether Mr Koussa would be allowed to flee the country before any prosecution, while diplomatic sources said that his immigration status was unclear.
Mr Koussa is also theoretically at risk from the international arrest warrant, which can still be obtained from a magistrate. However, the secret location at which he is being questioned makes enforcement impossible.